Sad news from Chris Hurley. Perhaps it's time for this forum to step up, after all, we got some talented designers hanging around here... 😉
I know AX84 played an important role to DIY guitar-amp builders at one time, somewhere in the early days of the public Internet.
I must have arrived there (AX84.com) at least fifteen years late to the party, I think, because I felt a bit like an archaeologist on a dig. All I could find was left-over evidence that there had once been an active community there. But the inhabitants, and most of the city, were long gone. All that was still standing was a few ruins that hadn't collapsed yet.
I don't know how relevant AX84 has been for a while. But it would be a shame to see the last traces disappear. Any chance of an AX84 forum here on DIY Audio, perhaps with copies of the successful designs that once came out of AX84?
-Gnobuddy
I must have arrived there (AX84.com) at least fifteen years late to the party, I think, because I felt a bit like an archaeologist on a dig. All I could find was left-over evidence that there had once been an active community there. But the inhabitants, and most of the city, were long gone. All that was still standing was a few ruins that hadn't collapsed yet.
I don't know how relevant AX84 has been for a while. But it would be a shame to see the last traces disappear. Any chance of an AX84 forum here on DIY Audio, perhaps with copies of the successful designs that once came out of AX84?
-Gnobuddy
AX84 appeared on the scene at the right time, its discuss forum in particular contains lots of valuable/useful information. As for starting a sub-forum here, I'm not sure if Chris will allow the use of AX84 on another forum...
Anyway, I hope we can bring back the spirit of AX84's forum discussion in its early days - when lively design discussions took place, which I find somewhat lacking here at the Instrument forum these days - somehow it has devolved into more of a "troubleshooting & repair" forum. Just me 2c...
Anyway, I hope we can bring back the spirit of AX84's forum discussion in its early days - when lively design discussions took place, which I find somewhat lacking here at the Instrument forum these days - somehow it has devolved into more of a "troubleshooting & repair" forum. Just me 2c...
I must have missed those days entirely (except for traces of that spirit in the "Hundred Buck Amp" thread).
From what I see in recent years, the days when significant numbers of well-informed electronics hobbyists were attempting to research and create new valve guitar amp designs seem to have vanished, at least in the USA.
What we have left now seems to be mostly worship of ancient "classic" designs by Fender, Marshall, Vox, et al. Nothing newer than 1965.
Probably not a coincidence: an extraordinary percentage of contemporary DIY guitar amp builds seem to be by people who can't actually read a schematic, but blindly follow a physical layout diagram instead. That boggles my mind - it seems a bit like trying to make a hand-written copy of Romeo & Juliet - without being able to read or write English, instead attempting to blindly copy the shapes of the letters on the pages. 😱
I can only speculate on the reasons for these changes. Perhaps it's because fewer people understand analogue audio circuitry these days. Perhaps it's because fewer young and energetic people - particularly electronics-savvy people - play guitar than used to be the case. Perhaps it's because the few young electronics-savvy guitar players still around, are more interested in exchanging speaker cab impulse responses for their Kemper Profiling Amp than designing new valve amp circuitry.
On the plus side, there are still lively discussions on the Internet about Arduinos and Raspberry Pi's and whatnot.
-Gnobuddy
Sorry if I was not clearer, I meant in the early days of AX84, you may want to browse through the archive and look at some of old threads if you have not done so. Lots of goodies there... It was unfortunate that the Hundred Buck Amp thread ended the way it did (before the re-start), even though some of designs presented were quite clever and in fact much more interesting than most of the "cut and paste" designs found elsewhere on the web.
As most guitarists are musicians and not engineers nor technicians, we can not expect them to be able read schematics or tell a resistor from a capacitor...😀 Still some of them are great builders and have wonderful "ears" when it comes to tweaking, so it's not all bad.
That´s the point but it´s a pity AX84 disappears.
I commercially design and build amplifiers since 1969 😱 and have sold some 14000 of them 😱 ,although most of themare SS, basically because that´s where the market is.
That said, still build some Tube ones, but, most important, when Musicians ask me advice on what to build and start mentioning old obsolete poor sounding designs, just because of old age and label written on front panel and schematic, I send them straight to AX84 , period.
In fact I tell them to punch the chassis for the most complex design there, BUT start by building the simplest, Champ type one
Then later they can improve it, adding stages,controls, difrerent configurations,until they end up with the most complex one,wasting nothing and having the basic structure already done and debugged .
KILKER learning tool.
KILLER sounding amps.
Fully agree that it should be kept, if at least as a learning tool.
Even if "frozen", I bet any new amateur problem or doubt must have already been analyzed and solved before, so searching the threads should yield the exact answer.
Also bet that there are suppliers out there offering iron and chassis, the big problems for DIYers; all standard components can be bought at many places.
Couldn't agree more - there is little if anything that hasn't already been covered with regards to guitar amp designs in those old threads, I think the Internet Time Machine has everything stored, so the information should be available to diy'ers for years to come.
All are valid reasons I think. I am in my mid 30's and only people I rub elbows with that like to talk about electronics are no younger than 50. I also play the hell out of my guitars so I take my music very serious and have studied theory for longer than I have played. Again I hardly see any folks under the age of 45 that like to play music with good old fashioned real instruments🙂 The few kids I see at the large rehearsal facility are playing heavy metal and just really dissonant loud stuff that isn't music at all, it's noise. Art is art so I won't judge and they have all the rights in the world do so, the level of volume is a bit ridiculous though.
This is timely, I just discovered AX84 last night.
My twin 2.5 year old daughters heard my wife and I discussing my guitars a couple days ago and asked me to play. It had been 15 years since I had opened any of their cases. A couple new sets of strings and some bloody fingertips later, i'm hooked.
I want to build a tube amp. is AX84 the place to start? Are there enough people around here that might be willing to help support a project like that?
Cheers!
My twin 2.5 year old daughters heard my wife and I discussing my guitars a couple days ago and asked me to play. It had been 15 years since I had opened any of their cases. A couple new sets of strings and some bloody fingertips later, i'm hooked.
I want to build a tube amp. is AX84 the place to start? Are there enough people around here that might be willing to help support a project like that?
Cheers!
Is there any chance of a DIYAudio moderator contacting Chris Hurley to see if he might give the thumbs-up to some of his material being hosted on a DIYAudio forum? Copyright and attribution would still be assigned to him, and the original posters, of course.
If that is not possible, how about a sticky thread here on DIYAudio containing links to some selected design-related threads on AX84? At least that would be useful for some period of time, until AX84 finally bites the dust (if it does).
I never had much luck finding good threads on AX84. Perhaps I wasn't going back far enough into the early years. That's why I was wondering of someone who does know their way around AX84 could post a few links to suitable threads.
Our modern world is already heavily biased towards blind individual consumption, so it is particularly poignant to lose a resource (like AX84) that is about the exact opposite - understanding, creating, sharing.
-Gnobuddy
Same experience here, if we're talking audio electronics. There are still some young people interested in microcontrollers and other related digital stuff.
Music is my main creative outlet, one of the bigger sources of joy in my life, and the thing that keeps me relatively sane when my working life gets utterly crazy.
A friend of mine is in her early 60's; she just joined a (country music) band, and she is the youngest musician in the group...that says something, does it not?
Yup, electronics, and live music, are both graying-out these days.
I moved from the USA to Canada a couple of years ago, and I do feel that live music is more alive here, north of the border. Still, it's a far cry from the stories the old-timers tell, about how it was back in 1970 or so.
-Gnobuddy
Welcome back!
I went through a long dry spell myself. College, first job, marriage, mortgage, the usual stuff that keeps you too busy to continue with your music, until you forget how much it meant to you, once.
Thousands have done it, but keep in mind, it is expensive to get started (tools, materials, etc), and it is potentially lethal (there are dangerously high voltages involved).
If you have no previous electronics experience, my suggestion would be to start with a (solid-state) guitar FX pedal build. That way, you can learn many of the concepts and procedures, without the risk of electrocution.
-Gnobuddy
I never read or participated in the forums on AX-84, but I have downloaded many of the schematics since 2006 for reference, and built a few of the 1 X 12 inch speaker cabinets and stuffed them with various 12 inch drivers. The designer of the cabinets is a member here.
I gave the last pair of speakers away when I had to choose the stuff I was willing to move 1200 miles and store for a couple of years. I kinda wish I kept the AX-84 1 X 12's and the EZ10 HiFi horns. Maybe someday I will make new ones.
The schematics are good reference material for a person trying to sort out what to build, and several people at work built a few of them. I have seen a Firefly, and a Hi Octane, and helped both come to life after their owners built them.
I gave the last pair of speakers away when I had to choose the stuff I was willing to move 1200 miles and store for a couple of years. I kinda wish I kept the AX-84 1 X 12's and the EZ10 HiFi horns. Maybe someday I will make new ones.
The schematics are good reference material for a person trying to sort out what to build, and several people at work built a few of them. I have seen a Firefly, and a Hi Octane, and helped both come to life after their owners built them.
I've got a Tube Build and a couple Pass builds under my belt. I'm comfortable with the not dying part, but at this point I'm only interested in well supported projects. I see Hoffman has pretty well supported projects also. I'd like to start with an AX84, though.
Can we keep this alive?
I suggest that you start a thread once you decide which AX84 project to build, plenty of help here if you need it.
I've settled on the P1-eXtreme. I hope you guys will join me on the build once I collect the necessities.
BTW: I've had a couple emails with Chris, and he's been awesome. Sad to arrive to the party late!
BTW: I've had a couple emails with Chris, and he's been awesome. Sad to arrive to the party late!
I'll be glad to help if I find I have anything useful to contribute.
It will be nice to see a guitar amp thread that's not about a Fender 5E3 build! 😀
-Gnobuddy
This time is for real: AX84.com - The Cooperative Tube Guitar Amp Project
Indeed a sad day, you may want to add your farewell message before the site is shut down. I left a note to invite the users there to come on over to diyAudio, hopefully some of them will be joining us here soon.
Indeed a sad day, you may want to add your farewell message before the site is shut down. I left a note to invite the users there to come on over to diyAudio, hopefully some of them will be joining us here soon.
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